UC Davis labor critic Norm Matloff was not impressed with these, but I think they are worth a look. One can’t program forever…

Under open-source unionism, by contrast, unions would welcome members even before they achieved majority status, and stick with them as they fought for it–maybe for a very long time. These “pre-majority” workers would presumably pay reduced dues in the absence of the benefits of collective bargaining, but would otherwise be normal union members. They would gain some of the bread-and-butter benefits of traditional unionism–advice and support on their legal rights, bargaining over wages and working conditions if feasible, protection of pension holdings, political representation, career guidance, access to training and so on. And even in minority positions, they might gain a collective contract for union members, or grow to the point of being able to force a wall-to-wall agreement for all workers in the unit. But under OSU, such an agreement, which is traditionally the singular goal of organizing, would not be the defining criterion for achieving or losing membership. Joining the labor movement would be something you did for a long time, not just an organizational relationship you entered into with a third party upon taking some particular job, to expire when that job expired or changed.

I like this idea because it moves unions from thinking just about one contract, they have to take a broader view, and that keeps management from trying to game labor relations by pitting local against local. It also enables unions to function in one of their original goals, a non-governmental organization dedicated to the welfare of working people, and who can take on roles which the government has been trying, not very effectively, to do such as job training.

Joel needs to work on how governance in this system’s going to work, there’s a risk of a two-tiered system separating people with and without barganing agreements. And democratic accountablity and control is essential: you don’t want to create another Teamsters (the Republican attack on the reformers was bad enough).

I bet ESR is gonna winge about this. <grin/> How dare people cooperate on something other than Linux!

“She had the greatest hairdo I ever hope to see this side of the deep south. It looked like she’d wrapped a loaf of bread in an old shower curtain, sewed big, gauzy, black ribbons all over it, and then secured it with a thousand bobby pins on top of her own pouffed out grey hair to form a sort of figure 8. It was an amazing piece of hair architecture. I can’t imagine how she sleeps in it.”

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